


Tears From A Stone

by JacarandaBanyan



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Angst, CFSWF, Character Death, Gen, Plenty of Pain to go Around, Soulcasting, but better late than never, very late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 02:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11910936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacarandaBanyan/pseuds/JacarandaBanyan
Summary: Renarin stood apart from Bridge Four and it wasn’tfair.





	Tears From A Stone

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for CFSWF 2017, but my internet was unreliable/nonexistent for all of July and most of August, so here it is, very late.

_“Sometimes the bodies of fallen lighteyes would be recovered from the chasms by special teams so the corpse could be Soulcast into a statue. Darkeyes, unless they were very wealthy, were burned. And most soldiers who fell into the chasms were ignored; the men in camp spoke of the chasms being hallowed resting places, but the truth was that the effort to get the bodies out wasn’t worth the cost or the danger.” ___

____

Sanderson, Brandon. The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, Book 1) (p. 396). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition.

__

 

__

Once upon a time, almost an eternity ago, Kaladin had taken his bridgemen into the chasms to bring them back from the living death they’d resigned themselves to. For a few hours, he’d made the chasms into a place of rebirth instead of death. He’d _claimed _them. Back then, he'd observed that the chasms were vase-like; thin at the cracked top, wider at the bottom. Great cavernous spaces under a thin strip of sky, shaped over the years by Highstorm flooding. Little by little the water ate away the walls, while the plateaus above were shaped only by the strong winds and the crem left in their wake.__

_____ _

___Just thinking about it made him want to laugh and cry at the same time, so that some sort of primal, grief-soaked sound bubbled up in his throat but never actually spilled out through his lips. Maybe Adolin was right to call him arrogant. Certainly it was arrogance to think that one man could take a war graveyard, a labyrinthine altar to death, and reclaim it for the living._ _ _

_____ _

___It shouldn't have happened. He should have been safe._ _ _

_____ _

___He should have paid more attention to that vase shape. Should have realized that the flood erosion would intensify over time. He didn’t have to be a scholar to understand cause and effect._ _ _

_____ _

___It all happened so fast._ _ _

_____ _

___All of Bridge Four had gone out on the plateaus, escorting Dalinar and Navani. Thinking back, Kaladin couldn’t even remember what it was they were out there for. Something to do with Navani’s research. Testing one of those positional Fabrials, maybe? Storm it, it didn’t matter. Not now. Not to Kaladin, not to Bridge Four, and certainly not to any of the Kholins. The important thing was that everyone had been there. Including Renarin._ _ _

_____ _

___Navani had asked everyone to stand a safe distance back while they tested the fabrial. For safety reasons._ _ _

_____ _

___Kaladin nearly choked on the irony._ _ _

_____ _

___One moment, the ground was stable. The next, the edge of the plateau buckled under the weight of too many people, sending Renarin plunging into the chasms._ _ _

_____ _

___For a few glacial moments, the world was silent. Then, the pieces of the broken plateau thundered to the bottom of the chasms._ _ _

_____ _

…

_____ _

Once upon a time, Kaladin thought of the expeditions to retrieve lighteyed bodies with vague bitterness while on chasm duty, then promptly put it from his mind in favor of more pressing matters, like how he was going to pay for both food and bandages. Now that he found himself on such an expedition, the bitterness had gained strength and definition. It coiled and writhed in his stomach like a skyeel. He felt like he might be sick.

_____ _

___Bridge Four followed behind him like a funeral procession. That’s what this was, wasn’t it? The chance to say goodbye to the member of Bridge Four that never could be? Because even in death Renarin was distinguished from the rest of them. Even in death his membership was nebulous at best. No other bridgeman had gotten a whole squadron of soldiers sent to retrieve them. No other bridgeman died like this, in an accident on a calm, uneventful day. Renarin stood apart from Bridge Four and it wasn’t _fair _.___ _ _

_______ _ _ _

_____For just a second, Kaladin had thought that this too Bridge Four could overcome. With each passing night around the fire, Renarin became a little less lighteyed, a little less rich and powerful, a little more one of them. For the first time, an important lighteyes proved to have not just the honor they claimed to have, but humility, and humor, and honesty. Sure it wasn’t his place to be there, among the people that served him; it hadn’t been Bridge Four’s place to survive the bridge runs, either._____

_____ _

___But in the end, he was still too good for the things that unified the rest of them.__  
_  


_______ _ _ _

_____It was dark in the chasms. Each bridgeman’s solemn face was lit by an infused sphere, but the light was quick to peter out. Syl drifted from person to person listlessly, but she seemed dimmer somehow. Slower. Her eyes followed the griefspren that fell like tears around the procession._ _ _ _ _

_______ _ _ _

_____No matter where Kaladin turned, more bitterness awaited him. The bitterness of grief. Bitterness at the senselessness of his death. Bitterness at lighteyes, for thinking themselves so superior that they couldn’t even leave their dead to the quiet mass dignity of those who died fighting. Bitterness at himself for thinking like that when it was _Renarin _he was here to retrieve.___ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______Up ahead, a larger shaft of sunlight broke the gloom. Broken rocks littered the ground in a careless heap. Some of them were bloody. Even from here Kaladin could see the bodies. A fresh wave of bitterness broke over him._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______They were only here for Renarin. No one else of sufficient import had fallen._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______And there he was, broken bodied and partially covered in stone. Of course he was broken. That’s what this place did. It broke innocents and cast aside their bodies._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______If Kaladin hadn’t already cried all the tears he had for Tien, he would have wept. Instead, his bitterness churned inside him._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

...

_________ _ _ _ _ _

He was wearing his Bridge Four uniform.

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______Kaladin had already known that he was, of course, but it hadn’t really hit him until now. That was the only reason he’d been on that part of the plateau in the first place. He was on duty as part of Bridge Four, and so he was supposed to be guarding something. Kaladin had assigned him to the side of the plateau where all of the regular guards were standing because he’d thought it was the place least in need of guarding._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______His eyes burned, but no tears came._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______They took the uniform from him, of course. Renarin was a prince, a cousin of the King. There was nothing anyone could do about his improper decisions while he was alive, but in death they could strip him of his choices in the name of glory and tradition._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______Like other lighteyed ‘heroes,’ he was Soulcast into a statue. If Kaladin hadn’t been blinded by tears, he would have seen it coming. As it was, there were more than enough tears to blind him: Dalinar’s silent, stoic tears, by Adolin’s raw, wounded tears, by Navani’s tears of despair, by the furtive tears Bridge Four shed at the end of the wretched day when the warcamp quieted down, by all the tears he himself couldn’t give._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______They put up the statue with much pomp and ceremony. Bridge Four guarded the Kholin’s grief from onlookers with a tight row of bodies. And so Kaladin got a front-row seat to Adolin’s grief as it hit him like a highstorm. Kaladin knew intimately how if felt to be consumed by that sort of grief. That didn’t make it any easier to watch._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______The only lighteyes Kaladin had ever known who never once looked down at him like he was out of place, like he shouldn’t have the power and command he did, the latest member of Bridge Four that Kaladin had failed, the prince whose battles were fought against himself, was immortalized in a stylish, never-before-worn military uniform complete with a sword shoved into dead hands. They’d opted to remove the glasses and pose him in a classic warrior’s pose._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _

_______It was a statue befitting an Alethi prince._ _ _ _ _ _ _

_________ _ _ _ _ _


End file.
